Types of Modality in South Slavic Stative Reflexive-Dative Constructions

Liljana Mitkovska

Abstract

This paper analyses the constructions with a reflexive marker on the verb and a dative argument experiencing a state, such as necessity or craving/desire for something. They occur in all Slavic languages, with varied scope of distribution, but this research focuses on their use in South Slavic languages: Macedonian, Bulgarian and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS), in which such constructions have a wide distribution. Although these types of clauses have been studied a lot, there are still contentious issues regarding their nature. Assuming that this particular combination of the reflexive marker with a dative argument represents a steady construction with specific formal properties we argue that its semantics cannot be computed from the meanings of the structures involved. The construction contains as part of its meaning a covert modal component of necessity, which cannot be explained as an inherited feature, neither from the reflexive, nor from the dative marker. Moreover, this component is of a more complex nature, ranging from a strong urge to inclination and craving. The main goal of this paper is to investigate the nature and the origin of this modality. Adopting a Construction Grammar approach we assume that the specific semantic-pragmatic features of the construction are a result of particular constraints operating on the morpho-syntactic and semantic features of the constituent components.